All Roads Lead to the Pantheon
Travel tips and memories inspired by that magnificent temple
This month, they started charging admission to get into the Pantheon. Turns out, according to a travel piece in last weekend’s paper, that ancient building is Rome’s top tourist attraction. I wouldn’t have guessed it, because there are so many other high-profile locations where you can shoot your personal “My Visit to the Eternal City” movie. The Colosseum. Spanish Steps. Trevi Fountain. St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. This entire post could just be a list.
The article reminded me of our visits to Rome when researching my book about my dad and World War II, “All Roads Lead to Rome.” With a title like that, you’d better end up there, right? Well, we did. Susie and I started and ended our explorations in that great city, and I gained respect and appreciation for the centuries of history that sprouted on the banks of the Tiber.
The Pantheon is, without question, an incredible achievement, and I understand why the Italians want to raise some money for its upkeep. To describe it in one sentence you might say that it’s an ancient temple with a giant circular opening in the roof. But that’s like saying the earth is a round ball spinning around the sun. Yes, but also…
It’s perhaps the only building from ancient Rome that is still whole and intact. The Colosseum has partial walls and floors that hint at its former glory. Many buildings surrounding it resemble archaeological excavations. Around the old city, you see historic buildings everywhere you turn, but none as ancient or as grand as the Pantheon.
It was built in the years just before Christ’s birth as a holy place to worship the gods--yes, multiple. Hence the name. In the early 600s it was rechristened as a Catholic temple and renamed the Basilica of St. Mary and Martyrs, after many of the martyrs had been removed from Christian catacombs and placed there, according to a brief history on the Pantheon website.
The glory of the Pantheon is its mammoth dome that sits on a drum-shaped building behind a massive, pillared portico. The scale is awe-inspiring. The dome, being so large, is extremely heavy, which meant they built it pretty solidly. Yeah. The walls are twenty feet thick.
The dome is entirely made of concrete, a mind-boggling effort with ancient methods. The giant circular opening in the dome, called an oculus, connects the heavens to the worshipers. A broad shaft of light is cast upon the ornate marble floor, a spotlight that tracks the sun’s movement.
Standing on that marble floor (slightly sloped and with drains to channel the rain), you might not realize the oculus is nine meters in diameter.
The famous Renaissance painter Raphael is buried there, as is the man who united all the regional fiefdoms into one grand country of Italy in the 1860s, King Vittorio Emmanuele II. His tomb is inscribed Padre della Patria, “father of the fatherland.” Many other famous personages are entombed there as well.
Church services are still held under that grand dome, so you can experience the intonations of Latin or Italian mass and the songs of worship echoing through the hall.
In the shadow of that achievement, it almost seems ridiculous to mention, but around the corner you’ll find the finest cup of coffee in Rome, possibly in the entirety of Italy. On the edge of a nearby plaza sits Sant’Eustachio il Caffe. If you forget the name, look for the image of a blue stag depicted in colorful tiles on the café’s entrance floor. A creamer, more flavorful espresso cannot be found.
Messages and lessons aplenty arose from the cobbled streets of Rome and its weather-worn monuments. Truly it is a world heritage city of the first order, whose preservation was worth fighting for, whose populace deserved liberation from the madmen taking orders from Hitler. A worthy goal for my father’s Army unit, the First Special Service Force, and the tens of thousands of Allied soldierswho pushed the Nazis north and out of the city in early June 1944. Areas of Rome near the trainyards were bombed by the Allies as they strategically destroyed German transportation routes, and other places were decimated by the Nazis in their retreat, but the heart of the city, containing its history and culture, escaped unscathed.
When my father’s unit entered Rome on June 4, Liberation Day, they stormed the cobbled streets of Porta San Giovanni. They streamed through under the shadow of a towering statue of St. Francis of Assisi, his arms outstretched in…welcome? Celebration? Supplication? Surely the intent was for him to glory in the grandeur of God’s creation, from the ancient stones to the clear blue sky.
The Force soldiers would have strode past St. John’s Basilica, the church standing across from the statue that is the home parish of the bishop of Rome, also known as the Pope, the leader of all the Catholics.
They would have fanned out into the maze of crooked streets fronted by sooty buildings narrowing the view of the sky. They would discover the piazzas and the statues, the ancient ruins and the gloriously untouched Pantheon.
And when they ended that day of conquest and of freedom for the Romans, they were assigned a task both vital and symbolic: guard the bridges of Rome, the connecting pathways over the snaking Tiber River.
At that stage, after all the effort, it would not do to have any further destructive harm come to the ancient, and eternal, city.
If you go…
Have I inspired you to visit Rome? I hope so, although don’t go in the tourism high season, the swarming, sweltering summer. Perhaps visit in the fall, say October.
And “if you go” (as we say in the travel writing world), I recommend the wonderful Olive Tree Hill B&B. It’s operated by Ivano and Terhi, who will become friends as well as hosts, as they have with us. The small inn on the edge of an olive grove is not exactly in Rome. In fact, it’s on the edge of tiny Zagarolo, a 30-minute train ride from Rome’s main train station, Termini. But it is worth the extra travel. It is a relaxing haven after the intensity of the city.
Ivano will fetch you from the train and take you back. He will cook for you, and you will eat very well. He will even be a guide for you if you want, as we did. (How about a night tour of Rome?) He might even serve as your interpreter! Well, he did that for me when I wanted to interview an elder in Zagarolo about his memories of the town when it was occupied by Nazis. That, thanks to Ivano, became a great story for the book. Grazie, mio amico.
Thanks, Bill, for bringing back such wonderful and amazed memories of this lovely building.